Bowler fined for benefits fraud

Leslie Webb, 61, claimed it took him 10 minutes to walk 50 yards yet carried coffins and drove a taxi for living - while serving as the match-playing president of his local bowls club.

A jury at Gloucester Crown Court took over three and half hours to find Webb - who claimed his games were "therapeutic" - guilty of six counts of benefit fraud.

Earlier in the trial prosecutor Rebecca Dennis said there was no dispute Webb had a medical history, including a hip replacement in 1995 and a bowel operation two years later.

But the Department of Work and Pensions could not accept he was too sick to walk far, given his involvement with the Gloucester Bowling Association and his physical work in the funeral business.

Webb, of St Paul's Road, Gloucester, was found guilty of six counts of falsely claiming disability living allowance and incapacity benefit between 1996 and 2000.

Miss Dennis said he worked at a funeral parlour until August 1996, by which time he had "started up his own little taxi business, running staff and clients to airports such as Birmingham and Heathrow".

The court heard that Mr Webb was so actively involved in the club that he toured Norfolk and the Isle of Wight for tournaments.

Defending his continuing to bowl while claiming state money, Mr Webb - who has Crohn's disease and spondylitis - said: "I developed my style from when I had my hip replaced. My bowling style was designed from one of the exercises I was given from when I had my hip replaced. I didn't have to bend in a conventional manner. I didn't say I couldn't walk for long periods, I said I couldn't walk without discomfort."

Of the pall-bearing work he did up until 1996, before becoming a cabbie, he said: "I believed that I was entitled to do it, because I had not been told I could not do it." Webb said that he could not sit still without medication and denied running a fully-fledged taxi business.